Cyberwar: what it has done, what is to do, and why to be afraid of.

In light of the much-talked malwares and cyberattacks, cybersecurity is among the top trends in the IT industry. We decided to find interesting statistics to illustrate this tendency and show its importance. We do hope that after reading the article, you will reconsider your cybersecurity strategy.

Cybercrime costs

CyberSecurity Ventures expects the annual cybercrime costs to reach $6 trillion worldwide, comparing to $3 trillion in 2015. As a result, expenses on cybersecurity are growing and projected to reach $1 trillion over the next five years (from 2017 to 2021). The global cybersecurity market is expected to grow to, up to $200 billion by 2021.

Cyberwar and National Threat

The US has even recognized cybercrime as a national threat and declared a national emergency to cope with it. Media is using the term “cyberwar” more and more often. On the other hand, there is a shortage on the cybersecurity labor market. In 2016, there were one million cybersecurity jobs open that are predicted to reach 1.5 million by 2019.

Business Losses

According to the CRN report, data breaches and security incidents increased in 2016, comparing to the previous period. The business sector has up 49 percent and the healthcare sector up 35 percent, compared to 2015. 2016 Cost of Data Breach Study revealed that the average stolen record resulted into $158 worldwide, but appeared to reach $220 in the US.

When it comes to the theft of trade secrets, the losses can range from 1 percent to 3 percent of an entire nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). The IDG’s Global State of Information Security Survey. They provide an example of $749 billion to $2.2 trillion annual costs.

Small and midsized business incur smaller losses but still striking. They equaled to $879,582, involving theft of assets. Another $955,429 was necessary to restore normal business workflow.

The main industries-victims

To the most attacked industries, Forbes refers healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, government, and transportation. Global expenses on security trainings are predicted to increase to $10 billion by 2027. It has also revealed that 90 percent of executives are not ready to handle cybersecurity issues.

90 percent of security incidents are caused by the software code. Despite all this, Cisco’s Annual Security Report 2016 discovered that only 29 percent of small and medium businesses used basic security means (configuration and patching, for instance).

Internal Threats

Intel states that 43 percent of data breaches were generated internally, with half accidentally and the other half — intentionally. That’s why governmental and business organizations are solving the security issues with the help of internal trainings. One of the fundamentals of cybersecurity strategy by 2021 is to increase security awareness among employees. And this shouldn’t be surprising, as Microsoft estimates that there will be 50 times greater data volumes that should be protected. SecureDecision has assumed an interesting correlation: each year, developers create 111 billion lines of software code, including billions of vulnerabilities.

Cybersecurity Readiness

ISACA has surveyed organizations for their Global Cybersecurity Status Report. Only 38 percent were sure about their readiness to meet sophisticated cybercrimes. Invincea has surveyed 1,000 IT leaders, three-quarters admitted to having been breached. 62 percent of them expect to encounter another successful cyberattack.

Cybersecurity has proven to be vital for the stability of any company. Although, it is often treated without proper gravity. We tried to show you the importance of IT security and what can happen if it is not addressed properly.